The King’s Legacy, All Shook Up
(New York Times, 3-5-06)
by Julie Bosman
WINTER is the off-season at Graceland, Elvis Presley’s home from 1957 until his death there, at 42, in 1977. On a recent weekday, only a few visitors wandered through the home and its 13.8-acre grounds, wearing
headphones and listening to a recorded tour guide. In the colonnaded “Meditation Garden,” a middle-aged man in an Elvis T-shirt perched on a bench next to Elvis’s grave….
This Sunday New York Times article goes into great detail about entrepreneur Robert F.X. Sillerman‘s plans to bring Graceland – and the Elvis Presley image – into the 21st century. And then there’s this reference to some of our local pols:
… While in Memphis two weeks ago, Mr. Sillerman met with local officials, including Willie W. Herenton, the city’s mayor, and AC Wharton Jr., the mayor of Shelby County, to sell them on his plan, which has been drawn up by Bob Weis Design Island Associates, an Orlando firm that also designed the revamped observation deck at the top of Rockefeller Center.
HE was warmly received. The Memphis Regional Chamber, a business group, invited him to breakfast, and Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., the Memphis-area Democrat, invited him
to lunch with some prominent businessmen. (Between glances at his BlackBerry, Mr. Ford praised Mr. Sillerman’s “vision and commitment.”)
To read rest of article, go to http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/05/business/yourmoney/05elvis.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2.
